Latif

A sad coda to the story of Adnan Latif, the Guantánamo detainee found dead in his cell on September 8, 2012. As I mentioned in yesterday's roundup, a classified military report released on Friday confirms that Latif committed suicide by overdose; he swallowed 24 capsules of the anti-psychotic drug Invega. Latif also had eight other drugs in his system and a case of acute pneumonia at time of death.

Brian Foster of Covington & Burling, who represents several Guantanamo detainees, writes in with the following comments on my defense of CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman---and the case of his former client, Adnan Latif:

Over at the Emptywheel blog, the estimable Ms. Wheel does not like my reflections on Adnan Latif from the other day. She opens:

I’d like to take issue with Ben Wittes’ post on the sadness of Adnan Farhan abd al Latif’s death. I certainly agree with Wittes that Latif’s death is terribly sad. But I object to Wittes’ take on three related grounds. Wittes,

I have spent a lot of time publishing other people's statements on the death of Adnan Latif over the past couple of days and have refrained from expressing my own views---in part because I have been gathering and composing my thoughts, which are mixed and which I offer here without apology for their lack of especial coherence. I find Latif's case uncommonly sad---not just sad in the way that all deaths in custody are sad, but sad for a different reason: Almost nobody really thought that Adnan Latif needed to be in custody at all. His death, therefore, should have been avoidable.

I will offer my own thoughts on the death of Adnan Latif later on, but several people have sent me comments on the subject that I am going to post first. Rather than do this in a string posts, I’m going to consolidate two in this one post. David Remes, one of Latif’s lawyers, sent me the following on Amnesty International’s plans for a major campaign for his now-dead client’s freedom:

At least, that’s what I’m hearing. Yes, this is the same Latif whose case riled the D.C. Circuit and has caused much discussion on this site. This is going to be a big deal. Stay tuned. UPDATE: Here is SouthCom’s press release:

The Harvard Law Review has published this article on the Latif decision as its presumption of regularity by a student named Al-Amyn Sumar. The article is dated in two important respects--first, that it argues for cert that was denied just before its publication and second, that it is based on the initial, heavily-redacted version of a the Latif opinion, whereas a more fulsome version is now available. Its basic thesis is:

The government's opposition to cert in Latif is now public. The government argues that "The decision of the Court of Appeals is correct and does not conflict with any decision of this Court or any other court of appeals. Further review is not warranted." You can read Latif's cert petition, as well as amicus briefs on cert.